Welcome back to another Sales Training series!
These posts share some of the key insights I give clients during our trainings.
Note: I intentionally keep the descriptions vague for privacy reasons.
What we’re covering in this post:
- How vague cold emails can backfire with technical decision makers, and why specificity with relatability are powerful tools when combined. Includes before/after templates.
- Example of creating a line of questioning that Raises the Stakes. See what making high % choices looks like.
- Listen to me train a recruiter live on how to sound powerful at the start of his meetings. 10 minutes of audio training from the Accelerator.
- How to find the “hard truths” that can transform your conversations.
When Vague Cold Emails Backfire
Specificity and Relatability are two powerful tools for cold emailing.
Specificity = precise and detailed language
Relatability = how deep your message resonates with the buyers reality
When combined, they create a powerful Disqualifying effect.
A message that's both specific and relatable forces prospects to decide how they feel about your email - they either see themselves clearly in your words or they don't.
You get faster decisions. Either clear interest or quick No’s - eliminating the maybes, which is really just a “Slow No” that wastes everyone’s time.
Sure, it is a higher risk approach. A prospect saying ‘No’ to you now can hurt your chances of a ‘Yes’ later on because of Consistency Bias.
The way to de-risk here would be to Reframe the ‘No’ to a ‘not right now’ by giving them a specific offer to say No to instead of giving them the opportunity to say No to you.
When it comes to technical decision makers (High C’s in DISC).. writing a specific & relatable cold email is more likely to be viewed favorably than a vague email because it eases their natural skepticism towards salespeople while pacing their analytical nature.
I recently coached an SDR on this scenario.
They were using my cold email templates from the course and X, but the emails didn’t perform as well.
He sells for a reputable company and his territory is fine. I believe the issue was the emails lacked the technical specificity & relatability needed in order to elicit intrigue for this audience.
This doesn’t mean he needs to start writing longer emails (although I’ve seen this work well too in other contexts)
And this doesn’t mean you should never send a vague cold email to a technical decision maker. It just means you need to try different approaches and see what works for you. Like my client did / is doing.
Let’s look at his messaging.
Original Template example
subject line: Re: an idea(s)
Hey {{first_name}} - {insert relevant company personalization}
We recently partnered with two companies in your space (can't namedrop out of respect for privacy) to work with addressing some of the following issues:
-slow development cycles
-inconsistent code quality across teams
-challenges in keeping up with evolving best practices (especially with react/next.js)
I don’t know if this is at all relevant for you. If not, that’s okay.
If so, the next step would be a meeting to discuss further.
Let me know either way.
—
My Analysis of the original email
This is a great example of what happens when sellers piece-meal various “winning tactics” without understanding the underlying principles and how they work together to create the right vibe / experience.
Without this you risk creating messages that are inconsistent and incongruent. It’s the equivalent of using ingredients from different recipes without understanding how flavors work together.
Before sending your next cold email / DM, put yourself in the prospects shoes:
Read your email outloud as if you're receiving it
If you feel any resistance or skepticism, that’s a signal to revise
Repeat this process until the email feels right in your body.
Revised version
Let’s look at how I’ve combined Specificity and Relatability in the revised version:
Specificity
- [key task/outcome] forces you to name the technical process
- [Technical pain] names exact pains they face daily + people are more motivated to avoid pain than chase potential benefits
- 3 specific links to Frame their range of “next steps”
- Specific (and visual imagery) - “You can prompt your way to working applications”
Relatability
- Starting with Intrigue “thought you might find this interesting”
- “Dev teams” to create social connection
- Casual vibes with phrases like “eliminating the need for” and “you can essentially prompt your way to”
- Feels like helpful sharing vs selling/pitching
The new template is also flexible. The SDR can test different angles while keeping the same structure
Example
Angle 1 (Code Quality)
“debugging and migrating code”
Angle 2 (Speed)
“ship features in hours, not weeks”
Angle 3 (Efficiency)
“automate entire or specific parts of workflow”
All by adjusting the [key task/outcome] and [technical pains] parameters.
Raising the Stakes
Below is an example of an exercise we did in The Accelerator where we practiced “Raising the Stakes”
Raising the Stakes means helping your buyer see the full scope and consequences of their situation. This enables you to discover if there is any urgency and helps your buyer justify the change.
Raising the Stakes well creates leverage.
The Exercise
We analyze a typical buyer conversation and workshop different responses based on the sellers experience. The focus is to identify the most effective responses - those with the highest probability of achieving our objective of raising the stakes.
Study the dialogue below and pay attention to the various seller responses. The bolded answers represent our recommended choice.
As you review them, consider why these particular responses were chosen over the alternatives. This analysis will help develop your critical thinking.
—
»Buyer: We’re interested in talking to you. We have a few security folks on our team.. we’re spending a decent amount of time managing the rule sets.. It’d be nice if we had more visibility into the security logs
Various responses:
In terms of visibility into the security logs, why is that important today?
Sounds like visibility might be an area of improvement.. When did you notice it was something that could be improved?
What’s been going on that led you to want to have better visibility?
Oh and why do you want more visibility into the security logs?
You’re spending a decent amount of time managing rule sets and you want more visibility into security logs.. Which is more important right now?
»Buyer: lack of visibility
Why?
»Buyer: It’s tough to know what we’re blocking and what we’re allowing through
Various responses:
I’m assuming you’re blocking enough of the bad traffic.. It’s not much of an issue.. you’re okay with it so far?
Oftentimes customers tell us they’re blocking legitimate traffic or they’re missing certain attacks that scrape data from the site.. Are these things that you’re finding?
Are you concerned that you’re blocking legitimate traffic or that you’re allowing site scraping bots into your site?
But why is that a problem?
»Buyer: We’re having our big sale coming up in December and we’re concerned that we might be blocking good traffic while trying to stop the bad traffic
Is the issue that you’re missing sales or missing customers?
So what happens if you block good traffic?
What’s not working today?
Have you guys tried fixing this?
What is it about your current environment that has you concerned you might be blocking the good traffic?
How big of a campaign are we talking about here for December?
»Buyer: Typically 20% of our yearly revenue comes from this
In my experience with similar companies doing big promos in December, those opportunities are anywhere $2-$4 million dollars.. is that the same range here?
Chad note: a cold read! IYKYK
»Buyer: Yes
What is it about your current environment that has you concerned you might be blocking the good traffic?
Is this the only December you’re concerned with that you’ve blocked good traffic? What happened last year? Did you also block good traffic?
»Buyer: We think it might have but it’s tough to know for sure but I have the feeling we did
How does that feel knowing you probably blocked good traffic and missed out on 7 figure opportunities last year and it might happen again this year?
Buyer: not good.. we need to make sure it doesn’t happen again
This is just a taste of what we learn how to do in the Accelerator.
I train a recruiter on how to sound powerful at the start of a meeting
Context: He does well in terms of getting prospects to like him. But he struggles later on with getting to the truth. This happens because the prospect must also respect and defer to you as an authority in order to feel comfortable letting you help them. It’s not enough to just be liked. This 10 minute live audio is from the Accelerator:
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